No images? Click here Newsletter - 11 Feb. 2022Message from the Executive PrincipalKia ora koutou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요 When I was nineteen, I travelled beyond Europe for the very first time. I steeled myself to step aboard a British Airways 747 and, twelve hours later, landed in Hong Kong, skimming over frighteningly close rooftops on the way in to the old Kai Tak airport. By the time we made it through customs, I’d recovered from the trauma of the landing and of meeting my girlfriend’s father for the very first time (let’s just say he wasn’t especially friendly). And then we stepped out of the airport doors. I couldn’t breathe! The air was like soup, humid in a way that I’d never experienced before. That’s how it’s felt in Auckland this week. So it’s been wonderful to dip in and out of so many classrooms this week, in part because we are fortunate enough to have air conditioning (and now air purifiers as well, of course) in every room, which has given my body the chance to cool down. But mainly because I’ve seen so much wonderful stuff going on. Just yesterday afternoon, I saw Year 12 Chemistry students in lab coats doing something with acids and bases that I didn’t understand; Year 13 Physics students doing a simple experiment that led onto something I understood even less; Year 11 students writing beautifully about economic policy in the Weimar Republic (early 20th century German history); and Year 10 students writing with style and economy about the merits or otherwise of Student Councils. I’ve seen impressive writing, in fact, in just about every year group so far. It’s become a real strength of our students. In Year 6, I saw some fabulous self-portraits, and listened to another class negotiate their treaty. Year 5 students in one class were navigating One Note, exploring its features; I saw Years 1, 2, 3 and 4 all getting to grips with Maths problems; and had a happy afternoon earlier this week popping into lessons to hear the teachers read stories to their classes. Mrs Herbert was even connecting a picture book to Archimedes and his physical law of buoyancy. Very illuminating! In other words, this week has been full of learning, and the school is at full steam already. I’d like to thank all of our parents, too, for sending your children into school: we have virtually full attendance. A handful of children are on their way back from overseas, but just about every other child is here. Thank you! A couple of other items from me: firstly, a reminder to check the rules we have in place for Covid-19. These are on our website and they cover most of the details you will need to know. Any additional questions: just let me know. If we have a case in school – just to be clear – we will of course tell the whole community, and we will explain our procedures. We will continue to be cautious, and will continue to exceed Ministry guidelines where we feel we need to. There have been no cases or close contacts in our school community this week. Secondly. A polite request around driving. Thank you for the additional care you’re taking in the school grounds (although I do need to ask again: please do not park on yellow zig zags, as this is dangerous for students crossing the road), and I hope you are using surrounding roads carefully. Please do not break the rules of the road when you park: some parents are parking on the roundabout in Carolina Place, opposite the school, or even blocking residents’ spaces. This is understandably upsetting for residents, and parking on a roundabout is both dangerous and against the rules of the road. Have a lovely weekend! I shall go to bed each night and dream of frost, snow and crisp winter mornings… Ngā mihi, Alex. 如需阅读校长的中文留言和重要事件日期,请点击此处 Monday 14 February
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Friday 18 February
Message from the Principal of CollegeKia ora, Alex has mentioned the excellent attendance that we have had this week and I must say that it is something that we are all enjoying. With all of our senior students back in classes we have been able to make minor changes to students timetables where requested or required and it is fantastic that we are already at a point where every college student has an established and settled timetable. On Wednesday we had Photolife in to update student ID photos, this was a very smooth process where our student’s excellent behaviour meant that we were able to get through everything very efficiently. It has also been great to see so many students around the school grounds interacting positively and getting to know each other. During our Thursday assembly slot we had a range of activities happening. In Year 7 students were engaged in a tower building challenge working on their teamwork and leadership skills as well as building new relationships. In Year 8 our students took part in an afternoon of leadership challenge activities as they continue to develop their skills. In the senior college we had online House assemblies, with new students being welcomed to the House and presented with their House badge. Our House Captains and POD Mentors have started the year well and it is really pleasing to see the role that senior students are playing in PODs. Next week we are looking forward to our golf and tennis teams getting their seasons underway. We have enjoyed great success in both of these sports in recent years and the numbers continue to grow, we have 30 students that have taken the opportunity to join the beginner tennis programme. We are fortunate to have some fantastic teachers involved in both of these sports to support our students. We are also looking forward to our Year 10 students heading out on their two-day Bronze Duke of Edinburgh expedition on Monday. We have a very cautious and clear set of protocols in-place to support this event and I know that this particular Year group of students are really excited about the trip after the interruption to their camps in the previous two years. On Monday we will be hosting an online information evening for our Year 7 parents. I look forward to many of you joining us. We will be hosting our Year 9 parents for a similar event on March 1st. If you have any questions about how your child has settled into the college, or any questions at all around any of our processes or events please do not hesitate to get in contact with the appropriate member of staff. Nga mihi, Kieran Verryt. Year 7 & Year 8 Interhouse SwimmingA reminder entries are now open for our 2022 Year 7 & Year 8 Interhouse Swimming event. In 2022, this event is optional (by entry only). Students who wish to take part in this event are to please CLICK HERE TO ENTER, no later than 9am, Monday 14th February 2022. No late entries will be accepted.
Year 9 MathsYear 9 students have been learning about how to find the area and circumference of circles. We then tried to find the diameter, knowing the circumference of the circle. The students were tasked to use string to measure their head, wrist, ankle, thumb, and pinky finger. They then measured the string with a ruler in millimeters and recorded their results. Once completed they used the formula for calculating circumference to give the diameter. This information was recorded on stick figure diagram people for display in the classroom. Year 8 Leadership ActivitiesYear 12 ChemistryAS Chemistry students are studying atoms, molecules and stoichiometry. As part of the unit, they need to be able to determine the empirical formula of a substance. The practical they are doing here shows them heating a crucible containing a piece of magnesium ribbon. They need to heat strongly to a constant mass. From there they can determine the empirical formula based on the change in mass of the product compared with the original piece of magnesium. Year 7 Physical EducationStudents in Year 7 have had an exciting start to Physical Education. They’ve just begun a unit focusing on fundamental movement skills including catching, throwing, and striking. These skills are essential in any striking & fielding activity with the next step seeing students applying the skills in a game setting. The enthusiasm and eagerness to improve has been pleasing and we look forward to seeing their continued development. Message from the Principal of PrimaryKia ora, The Primary school feels busy and we love having all of the children back onsite plus the added opportunities for learning that gives us. They too, are really enjoying the opportunity to socialise, play, create and imagine with others, and are overwhelmingly happy. At the moment in our classrooms we are gathering data and giving students opportunities to show what they are capable of. We do this in a variety of ways, mainly through observation and teacher judgements, where we listen to students explain their thinking and critical reasoning. We look at their work and talk to them about how they have answered and the choices they have made. Each lesson our students look at a list of two or three criteria for success in their work and use them to begin to take ownership of their learning. Older students will take some timed tests too, so that they can begin to learn how to demonstrate their learning under timed conditions. Gathering data in this way gives us feedback on our teaching and the programmes we use and lets us make adjustments for each child to give them a more personalised experience. We constantly reflect on what is working and what could improve to give the best outcomes. The biggest part of our work at the moment is making strong relationships with our students so that they gain trust, confidence and are happy to learn. We want to know them as young people and find out what they are interested in and what makes them unique. Next week our Year 3 students will spend two days at Camp Maynard in Paremoremo enjoying a variety of activities related to bush craft and building confidence. Although they won’t stay overnight they will have their first camp experience with a climbing wall, confidence course, bush art, fruit kebabs and lots of water balloons for some camp fun. On Thursday our New to Two syndicate will spend a day outdoors on our fields constructing, communicating, sharing, creating and playing as they use materials to build dens, slides and cars and work together with the facilitators from Conscious Kids. This has been hugely successful in the past and although it looks like it’s just play there is a lot of learning taking place. We are looking forward to a full week next week and the first of our Monday programmes for the year, might be time to read some books this weekend, it looks like it is going to be wet! Kia pai to rā whakata, have a good weekend. Ngā mihi, Sian Coxon. Working together in P4To start the year, P4 students are focusing on working together. During the last few weeks, we have been busy getting to know our classmates and learning all about our new classroom. Our main goal is to work together as a team so we can have a positive learning journey in P4. If Mrs. McCulloch catches us helping our classmates, we get to move up our reward chart and hopefully get to pick something from the treasure box at the end of the day! We’ve enjoyed doing lots of activities together and helping our friends who need it. We are looking forward to a fantastic year in P4! Lots of Learning in P11!P11 has been working very hard this week learning many different things. We cannot believe it is the end of the second week already. Reading The book we have been exploring is called Roxaboxen. In this story the characters were children who lived in Roxaboxen but have now grown up. They used boxes and rocks to create their houses and streets. They did this across the road on the desert. P11 were learning how to infer using evidence from the text and their prior knowledge to help them answer questions and share their thinking about this colourful book. Secondly, we drew diagrams of cacti. These plants are found growing all over the desert in Yuma Arizona. Maths We have been learning about 3D shapes and counting how many vertices, edges and faces they have. Some of the names of prisms we have explored are triangular, hexagonal, and pentagonal. Art P11 has art every week with Mrs Fleming. In Week 1 we created a picture of all the things that are important to each of us personally. We used crayon and dye to make them very colourful. Speeches for Class Councillors Lastly, we heard speeches from our classmates who wanted to be P11 class councillors, and we are very proud of how they spoke in front of an audience. Congratulations to everyone who showed courage when standing in front of the class and sharing their speech. They all had very positive reasons why they think they would make a responsible and helpful class councillor. We look forward to sharing many more examples of our learning with you this year! P8 Cats and TreatyIn P8 we have spent a busy two weeks getting to know all our new friends and we focused on ‘Back to School Splat.’ Here are a couple of pictures of our very own Splat’s. This week we have focused on Waitangi Day and the significance around it. For writing we discussed the importance of treaties and made our very own Class Treaty. We made Koru’s in Art which we know represent our families. Ruby's Splat Cat Daniel's Splat Cat ‘Growing our Learning’‘Growing our Learning’ has been our motto in P13. In Year 4, it is important that the students have ownership of their learning and understand where they’re at with it. Students can then work on strategies that will help them to improve and know what their next learning steps are. Students have set their own goals in our class and look forward to working towards them this term. Grass heads have also been sown and P13 will be waiting in anticipation for all the new learning growth to sprout wildly within a few weeks. Great start for P2!P2 have had an incredible start to the year and welcomed 11 new friends to Pinehurst, all who have been excited and confident to start school. We have been very busy in class and have already learnt 8 sounds! (s,a,p,t,i,n,m and d). The students have learnt to say the correct sound for each letter and have even started building simple words such as sat, tap, pan, mat, at and is. The New Entrant students have already started reading books too using their new sound knowledge. This week we read a story called Mr Men Goes to School which is a story about Little Miss Tiny who has her first day at school, just like the students in P2. As a class we drew a story map for the main events in the story and then orally retold the story using actions. For our first Big Write on Thursday, the students used their new sound knowledge to write the story of Little Miss Tiny’s first day of school. In Maths we have been practising counting to 20 and forming our letters correctly to 10. The students have been developing their place value knowledge and matching groups of objects and pictorial representations to numbers. Year 7 Art... Year 4 Science... Year 3 Music 30 Year Anniversary BookFollowing Pinehurst School's 30th year last year, we now have ready a 30 year Anniversary Book to showcase the memories. You can view the digital version here: https://pinehurstschool.nz/uncategorized/30-years-anniversary-book/ Great start for Yicheng in GolfYicheng Wang in Year 8 is playing in our premier team this year at #4 which is a great achievement. Because of Lockdown the students didn't get to practise and play as much as they would have liked, however Yicheng came back and is still playing brilliant golf. This summer holiday he played in three tournaments:
(These two tournaments are for ages 13 to 16, however Yicheng got qualified as an exception.) 3. 2022 Lydia Ko Age Group Championship U13, 2nd place Well done Yicheng! |